System not starting with Windows 11 from USB?
System not starting with Windows 11 from USB?
Hello All.
My son and I have completed assembling his first gaming PC, but it still doesn<|pad|> to boot Windows after turning it on and updating the BIOS to the FC version. When powering up, the system repeatedly returns to the BIOS screen without any warning. I’ve verified that all storage devices are being detected. The setup includes three M.2 drives with 1 TB each, two 16 GB DDR 5 RAM sticks at 7200 MHz, and a Gigabyte 4090 and Windows flash drive. The boot order seems correct. I’ve tried several troubleshooting steps, but I’m running out of ideas. Below are the actions I’ve taken; I’m starting to think there might be an issue with the motherboard. PLEASE HELP; what could I be doing wrong?
1. Removed all but one M.2 drive
2. Removed the GPU
3. Removed one 16 GB RAM stick
4. Cleared CMOS twice
5. Enabled CMS support for legacy drivers
6. Bought a new flash drive formatted to Fat32 and tried rebooting
7. Disconnected all connected devices
System Specs:
Aorus Z790 Elite AX (rev 1.1)
i7-13700k
T-Force 32 GB RAM at 7200 MHz
Gigabyte 4090
1TB WD SN850X M.2
2 1TB WD SN 770 M.2
iCue H150i Elite LCD XT
Here is the rewritten version of your text:
I would advise against using the outdated Win11 USB installer from the retail box. Instead, obtain a new installer from Microsoft’s website and create your own USB version to use on a spare USB drive.
So, for a brand new PC with all components freshly installed and no existing OS or Windows on any drives, the process was quite challenging. (In short, when I tried to install Windows 11 using the retail USB stick, it likely ran an older version or lacked necessary drivers for the new hardware. The installation would fail due to the system not meeting the minimum requirements.) I spent several hours adjusting BIOS settings, modifying options, updating the BIOS to the latest version, and finally downloading a fresh Windows 11 installer from Microsoft. After creating my own USB installer, the installation completed successfully.)
Sorry this was a week ago, I’m not entirely clear on everything...
First, I had to adjust the BIOS settings for the motherboard to detect any drives. The default BIOS setup didn’t recognize my SDD or DVD hardware. In the BIOS, I navigated to the Boot menu and enabled CSM support (which helped later when trying both UEFI and legacy options).
I also believed I needed to disable the Secure Boot feature so that any bootable drives could be found, and I used the installer after creating my own USB stick. Eventually, when I used a freshly downloaded Windows 11 installer from Microsoft, the process worked smoothly.
Later, I realized that the “does not meet requirements” error likely stemmed from Trusted Computing/TPM not being enabled in the BIOS. I turned it on, but still faced issues.
I updated the BIOS to the latest version, but it had no impact. I tested various settings related to Trusted Computing and TPM combined with different UEFI/legacy hardware options, but nothing worked.
As a final attempt, even though Microsoft claims the downloadable version matches the retail USB stick version, I made my own installer USB stick from a spare drive. After this, the display resolution changed and the color scheme shifted, but the installation proceeded without problems.
It seems the retail Windows stick had outdated or missing drivers, which caused the “does not meet requirements” message. Six hours of troubleshooting later, I finally got it to work.
It's nice to stick with Windows 10 on most systems right now, except for a few Windows 11 virtual machines in Hyper-V. If you need CSM or Legacy support to boot from a FAT32 USB stick, but UEFI-only for Windows 11, it complicates the setup a lot. Have you thought about using Rufus to make a bootable Windows 11 USB drive without Secure Boot or TPM? Just need the Windows 11 ISO from the official site and Rufus. If Rufus lets you keep TPM and Secure Boot off in BIOS after installation, you can switch them back. Good luck.
Thread closed because the original poster hasn't replied in nearly two months (though a few members keep responding to this long-dead thread - - - sigh)